Illinois wins first exhibition game in Spain

Luckily this one was just an exhibition.

Illinois opened its trip to Spain on Sunday with a come-from-behind 84-73 win over the Madrid All-Stars.

To be transparent, game wasn’t televised or broadcast anywhere, so everything you’re reading here comes from releases from the team and a box score of the game.

It wasn’t the prettiest of games for the Illini, who shot 3-of-25 from three (12%) and 32-of-74 from the field (43%). But a big 25-12 fourth quarter pushed Illinois to the 11-point win.

Big scorers for the Illini included center Dain Dainja (16 points), Sencire Harris (14) and Terrence Shannon Jr. (12). A lot of guys saw extended playing time in this game, so Brad Underwood surely wouldn’t be using this deep of a bench in February.

“We were coming off the long trip over and hadn’t done any shooting for a few days, so I knew it would be a slow start,” Underwood said in a statement on FightingIllini.com.

Assistant Tim Anderson led Illinois on Sunday. A…